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We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

An anonymous reader writes "Continuing a firehose tradition of maximum information density, Xiph.Org's second video on digital media explores multiple facets of digital audio signals and how they really behave in the real world. Demonstrations of sampling, quantization, bit-depth, and dither explore digital audio behavior on real audio equipment using both modern digital analysis and vintage analog bench equipment... just in case we can't trust those newfangled digital gizmos. You can also download the source code for each demo and try it all for yourself!"
Plus you get to look at Monty's beard and hear his soothing voice. There's a handy wiki page with further information and a summary of the video if text is your thing.

>transient signals behave differently from the periodic signals he tests in the video

He addresses this. No signal in our rate-limited sample exists in isolation. A transient blip or noise is not detected if it qoesn't fall in a point that is measured, yes, but a real signal does not exist on a single point. An audio codec is at another level above the hardware and doesn't change the fundemental physics of digital-analog implementations that havn't changed much in the last 10-15 years, and are developed with signal theory in mind.

He has actual hardware there, as he explains quite old consumer grade hardware, which does the conversion from analog to digital to analog, and the result is still for all intents and purposes PERFECT. Yes, the delivery is smug, but rightly so. Talking to "audiophiles" is like talking to people who believe in homeopathy: It is extremely difficult to not just make fun of the fools. When you instead manage to deliver an explanation and a demo that clear, you get to be smug. (Captcha: mockery)

He knows what he is talking about, he explains things clearly, he is not condescending to the viewer -- I think the apparent smugness is not for real, or maybe it is just how his personality comes over. And if you still don't understand how there is no stair-step, you need to watch the video again! Even though I've done loads of DSP, the nice demos he gives really illustrate well what he is saying, and who can argue with pure-analogue gear proving the point -- not just theory and hand waving, but real experimental evidence. Really nice work.

Never underestimate the power of self-delusion. Placebo effects have been accepted by science as being very real. The fact that someone, whether a believer in homeopathy, audiophile-quality, sugar pills or whatever scientifically-unsubstantiated nutjobery, actually believes in it is beneficial to them. Trying to take away their self-delusions is just plain mean. I really wish I could convince myself that what amounts to water is as effective as real medicine...I might be a healthier person.